Glossary Term – Person

Hernando de Soto (ca. 1496–1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador. De Soto first journeyed to the Western Hemisphere in 1514, though his more notable travels came later. In 1539, he arrived in present-day Florida and in 1540 set off on a journey to find gold and other “mineral wealth.” On his way west, in 1541, de Soto reached the Mississippi, making him the first European to “discover” and document the river. Throughout de Soto’s expedition, he and his men clashed with indigenous peoples. They also inadvertently spread infectious...

Glossary Term – Person

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) was an important strategist and Union general during the American Civil War. Sherman graduated from West Point in 1840. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not see military action in the Mexican-American War. In 1859 he served as the superintendent of the Louisiana Military Seminary. Sherman left Louisiana when the state seceded from the Union in 1861 and was commissioned as a colonel in the Army. After initial faltering, Sherman rose through the ranks as he served under Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman led...

Glossary Term – Person

Glossary Term – Person

Winfield Scott (1786–1866), “Old Fuss and Feathers,” was the associate of every president from Jefferson to Lincoln. Scott entered the military in 1809 and distinguished himself during the War of 1812 at the battles of Chippewa and Lundy’s Lane. He went on to serve in the Black Hawk War and the campaign against the Seminole and Creole Indians. After mediating an Anglo-American dispute over the Canadian border in 1838, Scott was appointed general-in-chief of the US Army in 1841. Due to his successes in the Mexican-American War (1846–1848),...

Primary Source

Primary Source

In 1539, Hernando de Soto led the first major European expedition into the interior of the southeastern North America, an area then known as “La Florida.” This nineteenth-century engraving depicts Hernando de Soto’s discovery of the Mississippi River at a point below Natchez on May 8, 1541.